Her Endless Sorrow
by Mayu Star
Summary: What would if have been like for Keladry of Mindelan to have failed rescuing her beloved refugess from the Scanrans? I've built a tragedy out of Tamora Pierce and i hope to make it sad but beatiful. Apologies to all Keladry fans, she has tough times ahead
1. Taken

Weeks after the war between Tortall and Scanra ended, it started up again. Tortall wasn't ready for the renewed fight. They had just begun to grieve the dead. Scanra's ragamuffin clans had rallied together, under a leader who all but promised to be less of a challenge than Maggur the "King Maggot" had been. Keladry of Mindelan, a fairly young lady knight who had begun to make a legend of herself, was assigned yet again to the refugee camp that stood on the border between Tortall and Scanra. This time, however, the amount of warriors she had to protect her refugees were significantly less, and as Keladry stood by her office window, staring out of it blindly, she wondered how they would fair.  
  
It was true that over the months the refugees had learned how to protect themselves, but they were not trained warriors and they needed the support knights and soldiers had to offer. How could they possibly protect themselves against the still vast numbers of Scanran warriors?  
  
The answer to Keladry's question came 7 months later. They had been attacked by no less than two hundred Scanran's. In the future history lessons this attack would be considered the last desperate attempt for victory the Scanran's would make before they surrendered.  
  
They had attacked early morning and the fighting had gone on until noon. The dead counts were high on both sides, and Keladry felt a deep, scarring pain in her heart as she gazed at the faces of her charges. She had been supposed to protect them, and although she knew she couldn't blame herself for the dead, she did. Somewhere, unconsciously, she did. And it ate away at her heart.  
  
As a silence fell across the land at the break of noon, Keladry could see that the Scanrans were regrouping. They were gonna attack in a full frontal assault and Keladry knew the refugee camp wouldn't hold. Turning to Merric, she gripped his arm and he looked up, away from the field and into her eyes. He could see what she planned. He nodded and shouted orders. Women and children were to escape from the hidden route Numair Salamin had created earlier that year. The men were to fall back and hold their positions until their loved ones had evacuated, and then follow. When the Scanran's attacked, they'd find an empty fortress.  
  
The plan should've gone off without a hitch, even with a small margin for error, it should have gone perfectly. The Scanran's didn't know about the escape route. Keladry had made sure of that. But as the women and children screamed, and the men on the fortress walls were slaughtered, and Keladry was captured and detained, the women and children locked in shackles, to be dragged as prisoners to the Scanran encampment, Keladry looked into the eyes of a traitor.  
  
Those eyes would haunt Keladry as they grinned evilly. His grimy hands would be burnt forever into her soul, as they grasped the three golden nobles a Scanran commander placed into his hand. And Keladry would always shudder at the utter hate and gleeful joy Keladry felt as she saw the Scanran draw his sword and cut Feldon down, even as the man grasped his pay.  
  
And as the cries and screams of the dead, dying, and desperate rang in her ears, Keladry would always live through the pain of being helpless. Her arms, legs, and weapons were all held tightly, and whenever she struggled or screamed for someone to run and leave her, her captors would beat at her with bludgeons. The selfless loyalty she saw in her men's eyes, as they ran to her rescue and were cut down for it, forced tears to spring from her eyes. And as she was dragged away from her fortress, the safe-point she had created for war victims, Keladry's unbreakable strength and heart cracked. 


	2. Broken

The fighting on the battlefields had ended. Lord Raul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak stood before the king of Tortall and Lord Wyldon. He shook with anger and grief and worry. "What did you say?" He murmured, half hoping he'd dreamed their tale.  
  
"The camp is completely wiped out. The walls have been burned or knocked down, the fields burned, the houses ransacked, and there are hundreds of dead, but we have found that many of the women and children are missing; including Keladry of Mindelan." The king sighed heavily as he got up from his chair, wearily. Raul stood still, letting the news poleax him. He couldn't breath. All those dead, and Keladry was missing.  
  
Suddenly, at the thought of Keladry and the few survivors being taken as prisoners, he turned and strode quickly to the king, his hands coming up and moving as he lined out his plans. "Well, if there are missing bodies, there must be survivors, which mean prisoners, which mean we can rescue them." He was pacing.  
  
Lord Wyldon's eyes narrowed. He recognized the movements of a desperate man. He felt that same worry, that same tangible urge to rush to the saddle and ride out and wrest the refugees from the Scanran's grasp. But the plan Raul lined out was detailed and as he continued to line out the finer points of his ideas, both Wyldon and King Jonathen began to believe that they could save the refugees.  
  
The plan was outlined and approved, however, the king frowned down his nose at the now seated Raul. "Only volunteer fighters can accompany you. The war itself is over, I do not want to have to send those young men and women back out into the fields for a handful of people on a seemingly foolhardy ideal." Raul rose and grinned, bowed.  
  
"I assure you, Jonathen, most of those young men and women will be. You may not understand how important Keladry is, sire. She's a friend and comrade to almost everyone of those soldiers out there. If you'll excuse me." Raul bowed.  
  
Wyldon turned to the king. "As you said, my lord, this war is over. I wish to accompany Lord Raul and his followers on this mission. If you'll excuse me." Bowing low, he left the tent. Leaving a worried king in his wake.  
  
The Scanran commander strode before Keladry. She was chained to a great structure, wrists and ankles, both, shackled. She could stand and she could take only three steps forward before the chains rattled and she had to strain to move any further. He grinned wickedly as she tried again and again to yank the chains from their holding points. She kicked at the large wooden structure. Hissing at the pain and in anger that the wood barely shook she turned and glared at the commander.  
  
His name was Haelgrg. He was ruthless and hateful and he loved breaking his enemy commanders. He had heard much about this Keladry of Mindelan, and he had ordered his men to capture the weaklings of the encampment, so he could watch her crumble.  
  
Haelgrg turned on his heel and shouted, clapping his hands in quick time fashion. The women and children were led out of their cells. Turning back, he watched with an evil glee as Keladry's face lit up and she strained more against the chains. He would admit to himself that her muscles were impressive. Keladry slowed and stopped, choosing to stand there and wait for whatever this little, greasy man did. Her face turned from desperate and joyful to Yamani smooth.  
  
And that smoothness, Haelgrg swore, would crumble. And it did. He had the refugees forced inside a circle, surrounded by Scanran soldiers. He sneered as the mothers shielded their children from the warriors as best they could. Haelgrg gave one quick smirk Keladry's way, and raised his hand and shouted in fast Scanran dialogue that sounded to the Tortallans as babble. His hand dropped, and the execution began.  
  
Oh, her mask crumbled alright. She screamed, she strained against the chains, she beat at the structure that held her until her hands bled and her muscles quivered. She attempted to strain one more time, as the last child screamed, and fell to her knees. As her tears began to fall from her glazed and broken eyes, the rain did, too.  
  
The sky darkened and water fell from angry clouds. The commander whistled and his troops backed off, into their sheltered homes. He sneered once more, and then walked away, towards his own home. They would leave Keladry there, in the rain, in the cold, with the dead, until she too, died.  
  
Keladry didn't notice the rain. She stared at the pale faces of the dead. She had worked with those women. She had joked with them, laughed with them, taught them to protect themselves from overenthusiastic suitors. She simply stared. The water dripped down her face, fresh and salt water mixing, tears and rain. The pale hand of a young girl, maybe 8 years of age, was only a few feet away from her. She couldn't reach it. She couldn't touch it and will it back to life. She couldn't close those dead eyes. But she could cry.  
  
And she did. 


	3. Eyes and Rain

The horn blew. It was still raining, but the watchman for the Scanrans had seen the approaching Tortall rescue squadron. There were many, many, warriors headed their way. The commander took one look at the approaching army, glared whole heartedly at Keladry, and ordered the evacuation of their encampment. They would be gone before the Tortallans got here. He considered slicing her throat, but as he yanked his cutlass from his side and she slowly lifted dead, tormented eyes, he decided it wouldn't be worth the time. She was broken beyond repair. That suited his bloodthirstiness much more. He sneered again, and somewhere in her mind, she noted that he enjoyed doing it.  
  
Then the Scanrans escaped, and the Tortallans entered the lonely encampment at a gallop, fanning out, prepared for a fight. But when none came, and when Dom, a friend and comrade of Keladry, looked across the ground and at Keladry, his eyes widened. "Great Mithros." He exclaimed. It was still raining, and the hair that she'd grown long over the last year and a half of war was loose and soaked, shielding her eyes from him, dripping water slowly. Her shirt and pants were tattered and ripped at the edges and her arms and ankles were raw and bloody, chafed beyond bounds by the too small shackles. He stared at her and the bloody dead in front of her and dismounted.  
  
Raul turned at his exclamation, as did Neal and Captain Flyndan. Shock and worry rushed through them all, and the whole squadron dismounted. Dom was the first to reach Keladry. As she had gone limp and was hanging forward by the chains on her arms, they all assumed she was dead. Dom gently gripped her chin and turned her face upwards, towards his. Her eyes were open, dripping with water, red with tears; and dead, so dead Dom shuddered. This wasn't Keladry, not the bright, strong woman he knew.  
  
Murmurs ran through the men and women as they all waited on the skirts of the massacre, cringing from the blood and worried for the woman. It took both Raul and Dom to make her stand, Flyndan hacked away the chains that held her and Neal picked the locks on her cuffs. As a tent was raised and as they lay her gently back, all shared worried glances. Buri brushed the men aside, and didn't even hesitate, as the men had, at removing Keladry's tunic, breeches, and shirt. Kel was bare, save for her breast band and loin cloth. Taking a calming breath, Neal forced his fear and tears back and prepared himself. He healed her welts and burns and myriad of bruises that ran large and deep, all the bones that had been broken. He burned away the edges of pneumonia that had sprouted from the rain. But when he was done, he stared at his friend's face. This woman was broken, in heart and soul, and Neal couldn't heal either.  
  
Raul leaned forward, patting her shoulder, soon shaking her until her head lolled from side to side in limp abandon. "Keladry? Kel? Come on Kel, answer me! Kel? Kel!"  
  
She answered to nothing, and as Buri gently tugged at him, he stared down into his former squire's face. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes and trickled down her temples, into her hair. She stared through him. She stared through Buri. She stared through Neal. She stared through Dom. A scene played, over and over, inside her head.  
  
A flash of attacking Scanrans, a joke and chuckle passing among the ranks of her men. The screams of the falling refugees . . . the women, trying to protect their children . . . a baby's cry, Neal's and Yuki's baby, Shorum . . . Roald and Shinko, newlywed and arguing over tactics of battles in the library . . . the scream of a baby, as she was cut down by Scanran executioners . . . the trusting eyes of the refugees . . . Tobe, Peachblossom, Hoshi, Jump, the Sparrows, who she'd lost in the sea of running refugees when the Scanrans had attacked. Daine, the griffin baby . . . the pale hand of a dead child . . . the cold, staring eyes of the dead . . . the small child's scream as she was cut down . . . her eyes . . . her hand . . . the rain. 


End file.
